As Zambia schools take on climate change, one teen is spreading the word in sign language

BY TSVANGIRAYI MUKWAZHI

KASAMA, Zambia (AP) — Every morning, Bridget Chanda places her prosthetic legs beside her bed, pulls on her stockings and pushes the remains of her limbs into the prosthetics as best she can. After six years they no longer fit, and it’s painful to stand or walk for too long, but it doesn’t faze her much.

“I still manage somehow,” she said. “I am a girl on a mission.”

Chanda, 18, is intent on helping educate Zambia’s deaf community about climate change. As the southern African nation has suffered from more frequent extreme weather, including its current severe drought, it’s prompted the Zambian government to include more climate change education in its school curriculum.

But for that to be shared with the deaf community, it’s up to people like Chanda to help translate — and it’s a task that is more difficult because sign language doesn’t include